Autobiography of a Tip

What a difference a gratuity can make

These days, it's easy to feel that a dollar doesn't make a difference. For one thing, we all have fewer of them. For another, they no longer go as far as they once did. But our dollars are actually more transformative than we think, especially in places like India, where the burgeoning tourism industry has helped give birth to a huge new middle class. To prove it, we asked 21-year-old Chetan Kashyap, an employee of the Shangri-La Hotel in New Delhi, to tell us how he spent the money he earned in tips each weekmoney that helped support not just him but his family and his community.

Kashyap worked as a bellhop at the Shangri-La, New Delhi, for about two years (he now works in the business center). As a bellhop Chetan earned a salary of 6,500 rupees ($130) a month. He also averaged 300 rupees ($6) a day in tipsor 1,800 rupees ($36) a week since he worked a six-day week. The typical Indian workweek is six days. Chetan's hours were 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Hotel positions are coveted in India, since employees are able to both sharpen their English skills and gain a measure of worldliness from being exposed to foreigners and working for an international company. The environment of the hotel itself is typically better than the sorts of offices Indians usually work in, and the pay scale is considered decent. Chetan found his bellhop job through a friend of his father's. Although he does speak English, he didn't yet have his B.A., so he wasn't qualified to be a front-desk employee or a waiterthe former generally have bachelor's degrees, and the latter have usually graduated from a catering course. "I liked the job," says Chetan. "The salary was good, and I got good exposure."

THE TIP: 7,200 RUPEES PER MONTH

The Job:

_ Chetan's main job was carrying luggage. He says that between 50 and 60 percent of the guests tip, and the average tip is 50 rupees, or about $1._

The Ride:

Chetan spent 100 rupees ($2) a week on gas for his motorbike.

Chetan's father bought the motorbike for him for 60,000 rupees ($1,200). It is Chetan's first two-wheeler, and he's very proud of ithis father saved for it for three years. Cars are still out of reach for the vast majority of Indians, even those who, like Chetan's family, consider themselves middle-class. But every middle-class family is likely to have a motorbike or a scooter.

The Donation:

Chetan gave 150 rupees ($3) monthly to his local welfare society, which maintains the neighborhood.

About half of this is used for road upkeep, the other half for the improvement of local parks. Nearly all Delhi neighborhoods have similar welfare associations that look after residents' needs, and while contributions are not mandatory, most residents do make payments to the fund.

The Phone:

One hundred rupees ($2) per month went toward Chetan's cell phone service from Airtel.

Mobile phone usage has risen faster in India than almost anywhere else in the world; nearly half of the population is expected to have a cell phone by 2010. The reasons for this are numerous but include the fact that call rates are dirt cheap and the phones themselves are affordableso much so, in fact, that even farmers and domestic servants have them.

The Household:

_ Chetan kicks in 500 rupees ($10) a week to maintaining his household of eight, which includes his parents, his aunt and uncle, his grandparents, and his cousin. This kind of multigenerational household is typical in India. The family lives in a three-bedroom home in a neighborhood called Janakpuri. Janakpuri, in West Delhi, has hundreds of thousands of residents. South Delhi is posher, but solidly middle-class professionals and businessmen live in Janakpuri. Chetan contributes about 20 percent of the total household income; the rest comes from his father, uncle, and aunt._

Of Chetan's 500 rupees, 100 ($2) went to the government ration shop for wheat flour to make chapati and for lentils and pulses for dal. Another 100 went to the local provisions shop for milk and bread. The
remaining 300 rupees ($6) was spent on vegetables sold by a local vendor, Mahesh Singh, who travels to Delhi from Bihar to sell his wares.

One liter of milk is 20 rupees (40 cents); Chetan's household consumes two per day. A loaf of bread is 10 rupees (20 cents); the household goes through four a week.

Harish, the owner of the local provisions store, sells about 70,000 rupees' ($1,400) worth of goods per month. Harish lives with his wife, two children, and father; puts aside 25,000 rupees (or $500) quarterly for life insurance; and spends 1,000 rupees ($20) per week on gasoline. The rest of his income goes toward running his household. This sort of income puts Harish squarely in the middle class, a designation to which about 300 million Indiansor 25 percent of the population of 1.2 billionbelong.

Mahesh Singh is one of the vegetable vendors Chetan's family patronizes. He earns 1,000 to 1,500 rupees ($20 to $30) a week selling okra and green chilies. With this, he supports his household, which includes his wife and two kids. He pays 750 rupees ($15) per month in rent.

Singh's village in Chapra, Bihar, is about 600 miles north of Delhi. Bihar is one of India's poorest statesits average per capita income is only $132 annually. Since 30 percent of the state's 83 million residents live below the poverty line, many Biharis travel to Delhi or Mumbai to find work (often as menial laborers or domestic help). Singh stays in one room in Janakpuri, and although selling vegetables in Delhi certainly does not make him rich, he is able to comfortably feed his family on his modest monthly income of 5,000 rupees ($100).

The Duds:

Chetan wore a
uniform at work, of course, but every six months, he spent about 1,000 rupees ($20) on clothing and shoes from a local neighborhood store, Vijay Garments.

Vijay Garments' owner, Narendar Kumar, says his sales are about 25,000 rupees ($500) a week. He pays four employees and supports his familyhe has a wife and three children. Every month, he pays about 1,500 rupees ($30) for the kids' school fees, among other expenses.

The Tithe:

_ Every week Chetan gave 200 rupees ($4) to his local Hindu temple. Chetan visits
the temple three or four times a week. Religion plays a large role in his and his family's lives, as it does for many middle-class Indians. _

Half the money the temple collects goes to supporting the priest and his wife and son; the other half goes toward feeding the needy.

The Tuition:

_ Chetan paid 150 rupees ($3) per week tuition to the center where he studied for his correspondence course. These days, someone
like Chetan wouldn't be able to find the kind of job he would
want unless he had a bachelor's
degree; without it his options would include work as
a driver or a shop
assistant._

The Salary:

_ Chetan saved his
entire monthly
salary for a pricey MBA program he plans to pursue after finishing his bachelor's degree in commerce. _

The MBA program that Chetan wants to attend is in Pune, one of India's second-tier cities located in the state of Maharashtra, at a center called Symbiosis. The two-year program will cost between 300,000 and 500,000 rupees ($6,000 to $10,000). Competition for jobs is such that these days, it's considered inadequate to have just a bachelor's degree, so only the rare upwardly mobile young Indian doesn't obtain a master's degree or better. Chetan ultimately wants to work at the managerial level in the hotel industry,
and it would be unthinkable for him to get there
without a master's. He's excited about his future.